A GOVERNMENT plan to erect a statue of Joshua Nkomo at the Karigamombe Centre in central Harare – even against his family’s wishes – has hit an embarrassing legal hurdle.
The Mining Industry Pension Fund (MIPF), owners of the Karigamombe Centre, on Wednesday obtained a court order halting all work on the statue site.
The MIPF says it was never consulted on the decision to put a statue of the late Vice President on its property.
And now, the Harare City Council also says it was never consulted.
Harare mayor Muchadeyi Masunda said: “As the designated town planning authority, there are no structures such as buildings or statues that are supposed to be constructed without our authority but that was not the case on this issue.
“We were not consulted and the matter came to council after Councillor Tungamirai Madzokere had raised concern over the issue. My attitude was that there was nothing to discuss because the matter was up to the Ministry of Home Affairs. But the ministry did not consult us for town planning approval.”
Nkomo’s family objects to the statue being erected at Karigamombe – a Shona word for “he who fells the bull by its horns” – charging that the decision is a “mockery and an insult” to Nkomo’s ZAPU party which used a bull as its symbol.
Now the MIPF could turn out to be the family’s knight in shining armour after its legal intervention which has put the statue erection on ice, at least temporarily.
The statue, made in North Korea, was the brain-child of the Zanu PF government before President Robert Mugabe agreed to share power with rivals Morgan Tsvangirai and Arthur Mutambara a year ago.
Zanu PF spokesman Rugare Gumbo said his party, which Nkomo was a member of at the time of his death in 1999 after uniting the two parties in 1987, would study Justice Hlatshwayo’s judgment in favour of the MIPF.